First of all, I would like
to express my deep appreciation to the government and the people of South Africa
for hosting this important conference.

When I was young I learned
in high school about the Dutch Empire, its colonies like the Dutch Indies, Surinam,
Netherlands Antillies, Aruba. I also learned about Rembrandt, Van Gogh and other
famous Dutchmen. But no more than five lines were written down in my history
book about the Dutch slave trade. I never heard of Fort Elmina or the Castle
of Good Hope. Little did we hear about the exploitation of black people on the
plantations. Until 1863 Dutchmen were slave traders and owners of slaves.

Now I know better.

We have to fight racism
with all legal means. Everyday. We owe that to our society, to the young generation.
It is a democratic duty to stand for respect, justice, dignity and equality
for all. Therefore I reject some expressions of racism and intolerance around
this conference.

Racial discrimination victimizes
groups and individuals even more when these persons are subjected to multiple
grounds of discrimination. In particular it concerns race and gender, race and
sexual orientation, race and mental or physical disability and several other
grounds of entrenched discrimination. Such as the trafficking of women and girls
and discrimination based on work and descent existing in many parts of the world.
It is my firm wish that this conference addresses these issues. In the struggle
against racism, our guiding light should be the universality of human rights.

This World Conference in
Durban is in our view a necessary moment to state to all people that racism
and discrimination must be eradicated. But we can only be credible if we recognize
the great injustices of the past. We express deep remorse about the enslavement
and slave trade that took place. But an expression of remorse as such is not
enough and cannot be used as an excuse for not taking any action in the present.
It is important to take structural measures that have effects for the descendents
of former slaves and next generations.

In the Netherlands we have
an active approach in fighting, discrimination and social exclusion. At this
moment Dutch society is multicultural, a salad bowl of people who live together
in relative peace and harmony.

Antidiscrimination centers:
The Dutch approach is to tackle racism on many fronts, with broad-based coalitions.
Our primary focus is the local level because that is the level where society
is most directly confronted with racism and racial discrimination. We are
in a process of professional ising local and regional antidiscrimination centers.

Action plans: While
preparing for the World Conference, the Netherlands consulted with NGOs and
independent national institutions. The conclusion of these consultations was
that the World Conference, through its Declaration and Program of Action,
should guide the creation and development of regional and national action
plans. We need to create the infrastructure for combating racism and racial
discrimination at all levels of society. Next year an national action plan
will be formulated in cooperation with organizations involved in the fight
against racism and discrimination.

Internet: The Netherlands
has had good experiences fighting racism on the Internet through private-public
partnerships. As the Internet has immense influence in our modern world, we
must take international measures against its use for the dissemination of
hate speech and racist material.

Political parties: The
fight against racism is also an obligation for political parties. We do have
legal possibilities to fight political parties based on racist ideas.

Penalties: The government
is doubling the penalties for structural forms of discrimination.

Next year the Netherlands
will unveil its national slavery monument, a symbol of national remembrance
in Amsterdam, our capital city. This monument is created in close co-operation
with the descendants of former slaves. The monument as a whole will represent
the past, present and future

Madam, Excellencies,

Besides the unveiling of
a monument we will also create a center of expertise on slave history, as a
dynamic slavery monument. Together with better education these centers form
a path for the youth to more understanding and tolerance.
I urge other countries to do the same so that we can realize an international
network of knowledge and expertise. This can only be done in involving all relevant
groups.

In this way history will
be looked at and described from all relevant perspectives. My hope is that then
and only then we can address the young generations with better, honestly rewritten
history books. Better books that I had as a youngster.